


Anna Chu and the World Away

by Agogobell28



Category: Alexandra Quick, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Continuation, Gen, sophomore year
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-18
Updated: 2015-11-18
Packaged: 2018-05-02 05:38:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5236337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Agogobell28/pseuds/Agogobell28
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What I imagine Anna Chu's sophomore year at Charmbridge to be like. I likely will not finish this, as AQATWA will eventually (when it comes out) joss all my hypotheses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Inverarity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inverarity/gifts).



> I have no clue what I'm writing. I don't even know if I can continue this. The plot information given already is so sparse, and I am honestly not a very good writer - at least compared to Inverarity.

As she stepped onto the bus with suitcase and owl cage in hand, Anna Chu looked behind her one last time at her stern-faced father and her smiling mother. “Bye,” she said, already homesick, though she hadn’t even left yet.  


Her mother gave her a soft “goodbye, Anna” in return, and waved to her, while her father just nodded and said, “Be sure not to get into trouble.”  


As Anna turned around and ascended the few steps toward the clearly exhausted bus driver, Mrs. Speaks, thoughts of leaving her home behind for another few months flashed through her head, and how it should be perfectly normal. This had been happening for four years now – well, not the bus part. This time around, the train system was completely inactive due to her best friend’s father, an immensely powerful Dark wizard named Abraham Thorn, attacking the places where the trains passed underground. And by “underground”, Anna knew that to mean the Lands Below, the entrance to which the Confederation derived their immense power.  


The aboveground method (coupled with judicious use of a Time-Turner on Mrs. Speaks’ part) was really the only option for faraway students who were averse to Muggle transportation methods to get to Charmbridge Academy (and Anna’s father certainly was averse to Muggle transportation).  


It was a shame, Anna thought as she walked morosely to a booth inside the magically-expanded bus interior and set Jingwei’s cage on the table, that she didn’t know how to Apparate yet. She did know the theory, but there was a whole lot of practice that went into learning, if you didn’t want to Splinch yourself, or worse. She’d heard some horror stories from other Charmbridge students.  


The bus wrenched away from the gate of Little Wuyi with a loud sputtering of the engine, towards the Bay Bridge and the Automagicka, and Anna almost laughed at herself as the bus got moving and a rumbling rose up through her feet. Of course. Alex. For some reason, it always came back to her best friend, Alexandra Quick. As Anna sat down by herself, listening to the sound of the engine echoing around the spacious double-decker furnishings, she thought of how she had been thinking all summer about Alexandra.  


There was not a day that went by that she didn’t worry about how Alex was doing without a wand (it’d been snapped when she fought John Manuelito in the Charmbridge basements last years), or what Alex would do without Anna there (the more she thought about it, the more she realised that her own presence caused Alex to show more restraint, even though it did sound a bit egotistical), or when she’d see Alex again, if ever. This last notion was made even more tenuous to think about when she considered that Alex only had about six years to live, by the terms of the bargain she had made with the Generous¬ Ones of the Lands Below.  


Last year, however, Anna, David, and the Pritchard twins had made a genuine effort to find a way for Alexandra to somehow get out of the bargain, or at least make the limited years she had left more livable with the Confederation breathing down her neck.  


They’d also managed, in between doing their citizenship projects, to find out one of the reasons that Abraham Thorn was so opposed to the Confederation’s existence: his daughter Claudia (whom Alexandra had believed for most of her life was her mother, until last Christmas) had been magically made sterile by the Governor-General of the Confederation about a decade before Alex was born. Anna had painstakingly learned how to copy her father’s official seal, and they had owled the Confederation records offices with a request for information. She was still scared to death of her father finding out about that little bit of crime coming from his otherwise pure and unsullied daughter.  


But it wasn’t the time to think about that. Anna was going off to school; her father had things to attend to, being a Congressman and all, and he hopefully wasn’t going to find out anyway.  


Then again, it was a miracle that she’d been allowed to go back to Charmbridge at all, Anna thought morosely. It was only due to Alex’s expulsion that her father had even considered it.  


She stared out the window as the blue-black waters of the San Francisco Bay receded behind her; the bus glided smoothly between the Muggle cars on the east end of the Bay Bridge, and turned gently towards an exit that only those with magic could see – a trollbooth for paying the fare for the Automagicka. Apparently Mrs. Speaks had an exemption of some sort, because the chain normally blocking the way to the magical freeway vanished in a puff of steam, and the bus drove through.

_I might as well just waste time until someone interesting gets on_ , she decided, and she reached below her seat for the smaller of her two suitcases to extract a book from within. It was a Muggle “science fiction” novel called _At The Seventh Level_ , and she had happened upon it while in a used book shop in the Mission District. It drew upon many Muggle cultural references and idioms, and despite her Muggle mother, Anna had never really been interested in non-wizarding literature before (preferring magical authors like Melchior Anderson and Belinda Raditsky). There wasn’t much of a frame of reference for her to go by; nonetheless, it was interesting enough so far.

Not even a book, though, would compensate for the feeling of emptiness that had taken Alex’s place as her constant companion.

~

In reading, Anna had fallen asleep on the table in front of her. The book lay open in front of her – or rather, stuck to the side of her face. She had been so tired that she didn’t even noticed when her eyes were gradually closing, and now she was at Charmbridge, and Jingwei was hooting at her. Along with all the rest of the students that Mrs. Speaks had to transport from Alta California and the Oregon Territory. There were a pair of loud girls upstairs, laughing and mocking something in a celebrity gossip magazine, she didn’t know what – it was a miracle that she’d managed to wake up at the end of her trip rather than in the middle.

Anna had been awoken by the noise and bustle of people getting their luggage off the racks in the back of the bus and then plonking them down on the worn hardwood floor. She looked up, peeling the pages of the old beaten-up paperback off her sweaty, tired face, and decided to wait until most of the rest had alighted. It would be less of a hassle, and people wouldn’t talk to her or stare.

The noise gradually quieted down somewhat, and Anna finally slid out from the booth and pulled her suitcases out of the seat beside where she’d sat. Trudging up to the front of the bus under the load of many textbooks and changes of clothes and a now very big great horned owl, she thanked Mrs. Speaks for hauling her and the others on the bus all the way across the country – to which Mrs. Speaks, with a bleary-eyed look at Anna, replied, “It’s my job,” and waved her off the bus onto the grassy area which preceded the Invisible Bridge.

~

The Invisible Bridge did not vanish suddenly under Anna’s feet, nor did a morass of bloodthirsty crows come out and nearly tear her apart. In fact, it was a rather boring trip across, as trips across the Invisible Bridge went.

Having entered the school grounds and stepped through the front doors of Charmbridge Academy, Anna made her slow way to the girls’ dorms in Delta Delta Kappa Tau. A moment before she pushed open the door to the room that had been hers for the past four years, she caught herself subconsciously expecting to wait for Alex to arrive. It wasn’t yet dinnertime – in fact, it was hardly even four o’clock yet. On a normal start to a year, she and Alex would go down to dinner in the cafeteria together, probably with Constance and Forbearance, or perhaps with David. They’d be chatting about what kind of trouble Alex would get into this year, whether it’d be a week before she saw her name on the notice board, how hard each of their classes were in comparison to the others’.

But no year was truly ever normal, and this year was going to be even more abnormal than past years. Mostly because Alex wasn’t going here anymore. Anna chastised herself mentally – _of course Alex isn’t here, she let a crazy baby mummy onto the grounds and brought a murderer with it, who unleashed an evil demon from the Lands Beyond on the whole school_ – but still, it was weird. And it was going to stay weird all year.

That was, if school even lasted all year; what shifted restlessly in the back of Anna’s churning mind was the fear that Charmbridge would be next on Abraham Thorn’s target list; after all, he’d gone after Baleswood Academy and the New Amsterdam School the previous year. 

There was nothing she could do about any of this. She would tire Jingwei out very quickly if she tried to keep in contact with Alex as often as she wanted to, and there was no Floo communication allowed in Charmbridge. There wasn’t really a witching equivalent of the Muggle e-mail system; _someone should really invent one_ , she thought. _It’d be really useful in situations like these_. Anna took off her shoes, placed them neatly beside the bedpost at her feet, then lay down and stretched her legs to get rid of the soreness that came with being on a bus too long. She stared up at the ceiling for a moment, before closing her eyes and rubbing her face with her hands.

Anna desperately wanted to talk to her best friend, even though it was next to impossible. Just for the sake of talking to her. Alexandra had stuck by her through thick and thin over the past four years, made Anna grow a spine, and it was really awful that she wasn’t coming back for this year or any years after this. She glanced across the room and noticed that somebody had forgotten to remove the bed there. Perhaps it was just to spite her, to make her relive all the memories that she had of Alex.

Honestly, the next best option was to talk to Constance and Forbearance, because they’d seen Alex over the summer at the Jubilee – Anna hadn’t been able to convince her parents that the Jubilee was a necessary thing for her to be at – and so she’d probably be able to ask them about Alex.

However, it was painful having to ask somebody else (even if they were the twin definitions of trustworthiness) what they’d seen of Alexandra. Anna supposed this was partly because she felt guilty that she herself hadn’t been keeping up with Alexandra very much, but another part was the stuff that’d been circling through her brain all summer about her best friend. There were feelings she’d been having for a long time, and she couldn’t deny that they were very strong, but she didn’t know what would happen if she voiced these thoughts aloud. Anna even struggled to think about them without feeling awful about it.  


Maybe C&F would know what to do.


	2. Chapter 2

After Anna went down to dinner with Sonja Rackham (her roommate Carol Queen hadn’t come back after the things that happened last year), she spotted Constance and Forbearance already sitting down with the Rashes, who, Anna remembered, were seniors this year. They’d be graduating in May, and her Ozarker friends would be free of them for two years, but after that… Anna didn’t want to think about it. It was too much to imagine it already.

She fell into the line of students that trailed off from the serving counter, right behind Sonja Rackham, who immediately began chatting with a junior boy in front of her about their respective summers. This gave Anna a chance to think about how to best approach Constance and Forbearance about Alex when they were away from Benjamin and Mordecai. Her eye fell on a figure moving quickly through the steady stream of entering students towards the back of the line. She realised it was Innocence Pritchard, and her question was immediately irrelevant, as Innocence called out to Anna as she joined the line.

“Hi there, Anna! How’s your summer been?” Innocence’s face, as usual, shone with unfettered enthusiasm and energy, but Anna thought that she looked just a bit more guarded than last time she saw her. Innocence had obviously shed her bonnet the moment she arrived at Charmbridge, but the uncovered hair was still neatly rolled up into a braided bun. “It’s been fine, how about yours?”

Anna almost immediately regretted asking the question as Innocence immediately began spilling everything that had happened over her summer, in minute detail, to anyone within earshot. She was just raring to go and tell everyone just how fantastic the Jubilee had been, and how she’d gone and had amazing adventures with her many siblings, and various other happenings. Anna tried to smile encouragingly, but it was a bit too much.

“– an’ there’s been a whole buncha them in the potato patches, we cain’t get rid a’ them all at once – “

Anna finally interrupted Innocence’s rapid-fire ramblings, as a few seniors nearby snickered at the younger girl. “Hey, look, can I ask you something?”

Innocence looked askance at Anna. “Whatcha wanna ask me about?”

Anna hesitated for a moment, and then said quietly, “I think – since Alex got expelled last year, I haven’t really heard from her at all, and I – I’m concerned about her.” As Innocence opened her mouth to say something, Anna continued, “Wait. Don’t tell me now. Can we meet up, after dinner in the library tomorrow night, maybe seven o’clock? I just want to know how she was at the Jubilee, whether you saw anything from her…”

Innocence nodded. “All right, I’ll be there. But there ain’t much to tell.”

“Don’t worry. Anything you say is all right,” reassured Anna, satisfied.

Even if Innocence didn’t relate all that she wanted to hear about Alexandra, which was likely, she could be guaranteed to tell Anna the unvarnished truth about what she saw of Alex. The Ozarker girl was absolutely incapable of lying, and Anna knew that very well.

After Anna had gotten a plate full of green bean amandine, mashed potatoes, and a delicious-looking fruit salad, she sat down with Sonja at a table far away from both sets of Ozarker twins. She decided to set the matter of Alex aside for now. There was time yet to find out what had happened; nothing was going to change in a day. But what Anna knew deep down about her best friend was that Alexandra refused so often to let her friends take part in the crazy and dangerous things she had planned, that it often meant not telling her friends about such things until they happened. And if she got herself in jail, or cursed, or even killed, there likely wouldn’t be any way for her friends to know about it. 

~

The first day of school the next morning passed like a flood through Anna’s consciousness, sweeping all the grime that had accumulated over the summer out of her mind, and a thin film of fatigue, like algae on a pond surface, was already starting to form over the surface of her thoughts.

There wasn’t much Anna could do to even think about anything to do with Alex or anyone else. Sophomore year was already a day over, and the homework had gotten off to an explosive start: Mr. Grue had already assigned a preliminary essay to be due in two days, and her World Magical History class wasn’t much better, with five chapters of reading out of a textbook that seemed like it was already forty years old. But then again, Anna resigned herself to thinking, every year’s going to be harder than the previous one. That’s the way it goes.

Anna almost forgot that Innocence was going to meet her in the library; it was only at dinner when the younger girl flagged her in a semaphore-like fashion from across the cafeteria that Anna remembered her promise. She quickly finished her plate, checking the clock on the wall. It was still twenty till seven. There was ample time to get back to her room, drop off her stuff, and make her way down to the library without rushing.

Pushing open the large wooden double doors that led into the library, Anna glanced around and saw Innocence already inside, engrossed in a magazine at an old decrepit desk near the doors. Anna whispered, “Innocence!” 

The Ozarker looked up, and upon seeing Anna, started to get up, but Anna shook her head, walking over to the desk.

Sitting down opposite Innocence, she asked, “So, how’s your first day of school been?”

“Oh, stars above, I got boatloads of work so far. But it’s real nice to see my friends, too.” Innocence mirrored Anna and inclined her head towards the other girl. “You did say you wanted to ask me about what we’uns’ve been seein’ of Alex.”

Anna nodded and said, “True.”

Innocence took a deep breath, looked straight at Anna, and began.

“Well, you know there was the Jubilee over the summer, an’ it was enormous fun, mostly on account of it bein’ huge, just positively huge. So everybody from all Five Hollers was workin’ for months an’ months to get it right, an’ when me an’ Connie an’ Forbearance got back, we’uns was put to work right off.”

“When Alex arrived – an’ I cain’t imagine how she got to our holler – it was near close to midnight when she found our house, an’ my oldest sister Freegift was the only one still awake, ‘cause the rest of us was all in bed restin’ up for the next day of preparations. So we didn’t even know Alex’d gotten there till next morn, an’ she slept clear through till the afternoon.”

“Durin’ the actual Jubilee, she really didn’t do much ‘cept talk with Connie an’ Forbearance, an’ they tried to keep me outta all their conversin’. But I maniged to sneak a listen to some of it,” said Innocence, dropping her voice and leaning forward, “if’n you want to hear.”

Anna hesitated for a brief moment, but leaned her head closer. “Sure, I’d love to hear.”

Innocence’s eyes flitted from left to right, then came back to rest on Anna. “They was talkin’ about – least when I listened in – how the Grannies was gonna take Alex an’ determine her, somethin’ about that Stars Above business we undertook last year.”

“Yeah, I think they said something about that. I’m not sure though,” said Anna.

“Alex said somethin’ else, about gettin’ a wand from the Grannies, but then Connie said she wasn’t so sure ‘bout that and Alex’d hafta be already fit to get a wand made, and not just up an’ ask them.” Innocence exhaled sharply, then said, “That does sound like the Grannies. They’uns don’t take kindly to strangers asking them favours outta the blue. I didn’t hear much more’n that, though.”

Anna shook her head and said, “It’s okay. It’s all I needed to know.”

Innocence shifted in her chair. “Please don’t tell them I told you that.”

“I understand. I won’t tell them. And besides, it looks like they’re spending a lot of time with the Rashes lately anyway.”

“It’s ‘spected of them to do that. It’s in order to become more ‘customed to each other’s comp’ny.” Innocence’s tone was grim. “I cain’t understand it, but ain’t nothing I do’s gonna change it.”

Anna was somewhat surprised, as this was new coming from her. Last year, she had exhibited a very different attitude towards the “bespoke” arrangement – one of righteous anger and frustration with her sisters for giving in to tradition.

The Ozarker girl spoke again, this time more brightly. “At the Jubilee, though, I think I did see Alex havin’ fun. I think she was real interested in the Ozarks and findin’ out what life’s like for us. I ‘magine there ain’t much to do where she’s a-livin’ right now, seein’ as it’s a Muggle town and all – and she ain’t got her wand anymore.”

Anna closed her eyes and nodded. _Yes, of course. No wand._

Breathing in, she opened her eyes and said to Innocence, “Thanks for telling me all this. I know it must seem like I’m a worrywart or something. But I just – I don’t know, I suppose I’m worried she might get into something really dangerous, even without her wand. ” Anna stood up slowly from the table, and Innocence did the same. “I’m sorry. I have to get my History reading done. Thanks again for doing this.”

Innocence raised her eyebrows, then said, “You’re mighty welcome, Anna.”

The two of them walked side-by-side to the library doors. It was weird how Innocence’s demeanor in private situations had changed so much over the summer. She was her old self in social situations, but when she was alone, the Ozark girl was far more subdued than she had been – almost more mature, Anna mused, as she pushed one of the doors open, and both of them quickly headed through. A thought suddenly entered Anna’s head, and she turned to Innocence and said, “I think there may be some things I’ll need to tell you later. Sometime in the next few weeks. Remind me, okay?”

Innocence was just about to turn off towards her dorm, but she said, “Why cain’t you just tell me now?”

Anna grasped Innocence’s hands and said seriously, “I still need some time to think about it. But I feel like I can trust you. Just remind me in a few weeks, otherwise I might forget.”

“Okay then,” said Innocence, stepping away and striding briskly away down the hall in the opposite direction. She turned around and waved. “G’night, Anna!”

Anna waved back and called, “See you later!”

Once she got to her dorm, she pulled out her several-pound textbook, a quill, some ink, and a few sheets of paper, and set to work taking notes on the first chapter of A Complete History of Magical Society, Vol. II. Stray thoughts started swimming around in her head, though, and eventually she had to take a break.

She took her clothes off, showered, and got into a pair of pajamas. After she brushed her teeth, Anna settled into her chair, but she could only make it through the end of the first chapter and halfway through the second before her brain started getting muddled again.

_I might as well come back to it tomorrow morning_ , she thought frustratedly, as she put her book and notes away, and climbed into bed. _My brain might actually function then._


	3. Chapter 3

By the end of her first week, Anna was fully immersed in school. Nearly all her full time was spent studying or writing essays for such-and-such a class; Bioalchemy with Mr. Grue was the worst offender, closely followed by Arithmancy. These were, after all, among the most advanced classes a sophomore could take, Anna thought. Other people had it at least a tiny bit easier.

Such was the time-suck of homework that she completely forgot to say hello to David Washington until Saturday morning. She’d physically seen him, for sure, but her mind was entirely elsewhere for the whole week. So when she walked into the cafeteria for some French toast and bacon and saw him there, it only dimly registered at first, before she realised, _I haven’t said anything to David at all_.

Anna went and got her food, asking the Clockworks to lessen up on the bacon, which they didn’t, and headed directly for David’s table, sitting down straight across from him. He looked up at her, his eyes going momentarily wide, and greeted her with a surprised “Hey. Haven’t seen you all week.”

“I’ve been really busy. Sorry I didn’t say hi to you sooner,” said Anna. “My homework’s been really crazy.”

David grimaced. “Mine too, but probably not as much as yours. You got some crazy classes.”

Anna nodded vigorously and said, “Yep. Arithmancy, Geomancy, Magical Theory, Bioalchemy, and a few other ones. You don’t want to know.”

“I got some of that stuff too. I actually think I’m in your Magical Theory class.”

“Oh my gosh, I didn’t even notice.” Anna’s face went red. “Like I said, there’s been a lot going on, including over the summer.”

“You too?” said David, biting off a piece of bacon. “I mean, I had a busy summer, but I didn’t know you did.”

“It wasn’t really busy for me. My father had a lot of work to do, with the war against the Dark Convention, and he was away a lot for emergency sessions of Congress on what to do in response to this and that. I did have a lot of summer homework though. Geomancy was _really_ hard. I hope the class isn’t nearly as difficult as the homework was…” Anna trailed off.

“I’m sure it’ll be fine. You study pretty hard,” replied David.

“I’ve only had two periods of it so far, and the homework was okay, but I’m worried it’ll get harder.”

Anna talked with David until he finished his breakfast, at which point he had to go back to his dorm to “get some stuff”. She then got up, and looked around the room. Her eyes landed on the door, and she just caught a glimpse of Constance and Forbearance, sandwiched between the Rash twins, heading out into the hallway.

She briefly considered going after them, but then she quashed that thought, surprised she’d even had it. _Alex has rubbed off on me,_ Anna thought. _That’s exactly the kind of foolhardy thing she’d do._ She left the cafeteria in a bit of a hurry, even though it was Saturday and she had nothing to do besides homework.

~

It wasn’t much fun studying all the time, but it was all Anna ever knew how to do. David had told her, one day, that she was about five times as much a “wyrm” as last year, to which Anna responded defensively, “So what? That’s fine, isn’t it?” and David beat a hasty retreat from his words. But then she realised she hardly ever saw David anyway, except in her Magical Theory classes on alternate days. 

On the other hand, Constance and Forbearance (while in both her Bioalchemy and Arithmancy classes) never interacted with her, save for a few quick smiles from across the classroom here and there. It stung, badly, for them to distance themselves from her, but she knew they wouldn’t do such a thing willingly. There _had_ to be a coercive factor involved, and it was likely something that had happened over the summer.

Anna didn’t really think Innocence had told her the whole story, but then again, she hadn’t asked a lot of questions. And it was too soon to ask to talk again. But it was worth wondering what had been going on; it occupied the back of her mind for the next couple days.

A few days passed, and there came a lull in the homework – deceptive though it was, Anna was at loose ends for now. Jingwei was itching to get outside; she realised that she hadn’t been very attentive to her owl’s needs, and resolved to write a letter to her parents to give Jingwei some exercise.

_Dear Mother & Father:_  
_It’s only been a couple weeks here, but I’ve decided to write a letter anyway, because there are some things I’d like to let you know._  
_I’m doing fairly well in my classes, even though they’re not easy at all. Homework has been abundant, and my time has been mostly spent completing it. I think my favourite class so far is likely Magical History._  
_The school has been kept safe, so far, and nothing strange or unexpected has happened. The student body size here at Charmbridge has shrunk, though, probably due to parents being irrationally scared for their children._  
_The most important thing I need to tell you, though, is that I think_

Anna paused, unsure of what to say, and siphoned the last line’s ink off the page with her wand. It wouldn’t do to tell her parents what she thought about Alex’s absence being connected with less trouble at Charmbridge. 

After a fair bit of thought, she wrote a new line in its place:

_My friends have lately been keeping to themselves, some more so than others. Then again, I haven’t had much time to spend with them._  
_Your daughter,_  
_Anna_

The Chinese characters on the page dried slowly, so Anna had to wait a few minutes before rolling the paper up and tying it to her irritable owl’s leg. She sent Jingwei out the window, with instructions to be safe on her journey to San Francisco and back. She then sat down at her desk, pulled out her unfinished essay for Bioalchemy, and started to write – this time in English.

~

September’s second half passed in a blur, and it was over and done with and passing straight into October without Anna even noticing. The library was now, more than ever, her second home – her first home being the two-person dorm room that currently housed one. The feeling of being closed-in was far too strong.

In that span, Jingwei had come back with a reply from her mother, written out in neat and tidy characters, which said it was good that Anna had written them, and to be careful of suspicious things happening. It didn’t address Anna’s social isolation; then again, Anna had dealt with that before, so maybe her mother just assumed she could deal with it again. It was only temporary, Anna told herself.

Anna went to David’s Quidditch team practice one Friday evening, mostly to support him, but also to get out in the open air. She’d been holing herself up for the entire week, working away feverishly on essays and papers and proofs for her classes, and it didn’t really do anything for her but keep her grades at the hundred percent they already were. Watching people fly around in the air was fun, even if Anna didn’t know any of them besides David. 

She sat on the cold bleachers that ringed the Quidditch field, looking out across the Charmbridge grounds as the team flew around and shouted to each other, and her mind sank into a kind of reverie. She felt almost numb, or emotionally cold, maybe; she didn’t honestly know. The leaves in the trees in the forest surrounding Charmbridge were starting to turn to yellow and orange and vivid gold colours. It had already started to get cooler during the days, and the nights were already pretty chilly.

She inhaled the fresh fall air – it had just gotten to the point where the air smelled clear and almost sweet again, after the heat and headiness of summer – and noted how a month had passed without her even barely noticing. And months turned into seasons, and became years, and Anna was at the point where she could only barely start to see her life ahead. But that was better, she knew, than not having any concept of it at all.

What was going to happen in the coming years? This year of school, and then two more years, and then what? College? Of course her father wanted that for her. The education of his only daughter was paramount, especially since there was only her – she was the last scion of the Chu family in America. And sure, Anna wanted to know more, to learn about whatever it was that took her fancy. But it still seemed so long away now, and other things were more important.

Anna felt as if she was drifting along in a deep, fast-flowing river. School was carrying her along, but she still had to work to keep from getting pulled under. And it was hard to tell where she was going, and exactly when she’d arrive wherever she was destined to be.

The team finally landed, after the sun had gone below the horizon, and David came up to where Anna was sitting. He was clearly somewhat tired from the strenuous practice, but he said, “How’d you like it?”

Anna got up from the cold metal bleachers and replied, “It was good, but to be honest, I wasn’t really paying attention.” Her mind was, indeed, still elsewhere as they began to walk back to the doors of Charmbridge’s main building. David could tell she was distracted, and didn’t bother her until they went inside. He said good night, and headed off to his dorm wing.


End file.
